Time has passed. The metronome ticking on, even as music and dance might still feel impossible, intolerable, even offensive. Loss, begun as an absence, become a presence now, no more detachable than our own shadow. And yet not dark like a shadow; far from it. Scintillatingly colorful, piercingly familiar. A donkey-kick in the chest lands out of nowhere because their photo on the fridge, or a particular skyline in a particular light, or a mood set adrift by the stereo of a passing car, reminds us of when they were here, or that they should be here.

Severance does not get easier. It shape-shifts, that's all. As a poet and marathon runner (and avid reader, as Rebecca herself was), I know the power of the extrasensory - that it is those things just beyond what we can immediately see, hear and touch from which we draw resilience, compassion, and definitions of beauty. No poet ever lined up words to capture what is directly in front of her (that's a water color painter). It is the images in her own mind she is pursuing. Our attachment to people and things we cannot directly see is one of the greatest qualities of the human soul. I see it as the second chamber to the heart we've been given, when the first is where the agony of loss pools. Severance and attachment held in the same organ, a balance essential for continuation. When a memory becomes a blessing or inspiration, that is because the loss on one side has nourished and envigorated the attachment on the other, has become direction, purpose, and elevation in their name.

It has been over a year and a half since the loss of Rebecca, and I have no doubt that, for those many people who loved her, she stirs as vividly in both of those heart chambers as ever before.

Below are some of the ways in which Rebecca is remembered this year.